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The Art and Science of Modern Film Making

18 January 2019

On Thursday evening, the boarders were introduced to the world of visual effects by Alex Hope, Managing Director of Double Negative, an award-winning visual effects company in London.

Mr Hope talked to the boys about the history of visual effects in films, how films are made from their early development stage through to distribution, and how the process of incorporating VFX into film making is started. He went onto explain in some detail, the different stages creators go through to get the perfect outcome on screen; from initial filming with tennis balls, sensors and cameras, to the artists' designs and computer generation. He also showed a number of showreels of the films that the team at DNEG have created. These included films such as Skyfall, Man of Steel and Venom. The boys were able to see what the scenes first looked like, what the team did to create the effects and then the finished product.

At the end of the talk, Mr Hope told the boys about how they too could work in the creative industries, what skills they would need and what they should concentrate on studying at school: problem-solving, Art, Maths, Science and Computing. In the UK, the creative industries are one of the fastest growing and exciting industries to work in. This is only set to get better in the future as technology changes.

It was a privilege to have Alex Hope talk to the senior boys about his work. The boys were blown away by the scale and time it takes to make films come to life using technology and some may even think about it as a career path.